You Can Find Me Where The Sea Pours Into The Stars

Don't question the magenta blueberry

I wanted to play with extreme color contrasts. it just ended up very pink as pink and purple are the colors I associate the most with the warp

I play Warframe a lot, This is what you are is a pretty infamous theme for reasons I won't get into but idk I had a vision and may or may not have achieved it I dunno

“I cannot simply- you are not a worm.”

Now it’s your turn to scowl, “No, I’m obviously not a worm.”

“Why would you ask me that then?”

“Because what if I turn into a worm?”

He blinks slowly, then says with the greatest possible certainty, “I would turn you back.”

“Would you?” you ask, raising an eyebrow, “I thought you’d like me as a worm.”

“Perhaps I would, if it would end this conversation.”

Snickering, you tap the desk, “Seriously, would you still love me if I were a worm?”

“Do I get a prize if I say yes?”

“I’ll think about it,” you bat your eyelashes innocently.

The Emperor thinks, leaning backwards in his chair, “So… in this scenario, you are a worm.”

“Yes.”

“Were you turned into one, or have you always been a worm?”

“I suppose I was turned into one.”

“So I loved you as a person first, then?”

You squint, “...yes.”

“And I am not allowed to turn you back into a person, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Would you… eventually turn back into a person when the circumstances wear off?”

“Maybe,” you kick your feet, feeling how solid the wood is, “Maybe not. I could be a worm forever.”

“I doubt you would be a worm forever.”

“I could be.”

“Not if I am involved, you would not be.”

“So you wouldn’t love me as a worm?” you give him your best puppy dog eyes, attempting to look as sad as possible.

The Emperor’s face draws into a scowl, “I did not say that.”

“You basically did, just now. I can’t believe this. Scorned by the Emperor himself– how will worm me survive?” dramatically, you place a hand over your heart, and a hand on your forehead as you pretend to faint onto the desk. 

“...you would survive as a worm,” is the grumbled response from the man in front of you.

Sniffling, you ask, “But how do you know?”

Your lover rolls his eyes and exhales just as dramatically, “I would not allow otherwise.”

That perks you right up like a daisy getting rain, and you beam, “Aw, really?”

“Yes.”

“So what you’re saying is…” you start to lead him into the sentence.

The Emperor, for once, looks moderately defeated as he relents, “Yes, I would love you as a worm.”

Giggling, you get up to go press a kiss to his cheek, which he happily leans into. Before you can go sit down, however, he stops you.

Then he grins and asks, “But would you love me if I were a worm?”

“Yes,” you say, with no hesitation or time to think about it, “I absolutely would. I would carry you around in a little terrarium.”

A sense of dread crawls up your spine as he grins at you, teeth glinting in the light, “Oh, really?”

You nod, and then he nods back.

“Duly noted,” he says.

Then promptly turns into a worm.

What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck.

Frantically, you reach out and catch his little worm body, gently cradling him in your palm. Admittedly, his worm self is still around the size of a garter snake, and can easily wrap around your forearm if he tried. Predictably, he still has his hair, and the golden laurels that rest on it.

“Now, how are those staying on with no ears?” you ask him, a little bit dumbfounded.

The Wormperor’s “head” moves to look up at you. 

They stay on the same way I turned into this form. By my will.

“Oh, but you can still talk?”

Yes.

“I wouldn’t be able to talk if I were a worm.”

That’s because you aren’t the Emperor, are you?

Well, he had you there.

“I guess I ought to find you a terrarium then, shouldn’t I?”

The Wormperor is silent, but you take that as an affirmative. You do not want to be spritzing him with water all day.

…

That is not an appropriate container.

“What are you considering appropriate?” You grouch, combing through the jars in your collection, “You’ve rejected all of them so far and– and how are you even seeing these? You have no eyes!”

I can see just fine.

“Sure you can.” You point to a jar that’s been stained the shade of piss, “What color is this one?”

Purple is the very confident answer.

“It’s yellow.”

No it isn’t.

“Yes it is, do not gaslight me.”

It’s purple.

“Yellow,” you grumble, turning back to look through the shelves.

Purple.

A scowl, “Yellow.”

Purple.

Fully frustrated, you snap, “Yellow.”

Yellow.

“Purple! Aw, dammit!” you point at him, “Stop! You’re being exceedingly difficult right now.”

You still love me though.

“I do, but you’re upsetting me.”

I’d bat my eyes if I had them.

A bark of laughter escapes you, “So you can’t see.”

There’s humor in his tone, Yes I can.

You give up after that.

Eventually, the two of you settle on a cute jar that can be closed, but is a reasonable weight so your arms won’t be dying by the end of it all.

Malcador sees the situation and pinches the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes as he tries to stave off a headache.

“I see you two have gotten yourselves into a situation. Again.”

You laugh, “Nonsense, the only one in a situation is this guy.”

Hello, Malcador. Greets the Wormperor.

Malcador looks extremely tired, “This is not real.”

It is real.

“I wish it were not. You have meetings to attend today.”

There are always meetings.

“Correct, and yet, here we are. And you are going to be late to the first of them.”

You’re about to butt in when Malcador suggests that you can come along and simply pass on the word of the Emperor because he must be “too busy” to carve out time in his schedule to go to some meeting with a group of annoying nobles. (You use the word annoying– Malcador uses a much stronger adjective). 

Which leads to you sitting at a table with a group of noblemen who are extremely upset that the Emperor could not make it.

“Please, kind sirs, I assure you that I am most capable of-”

“We were meant to meet with the Emperor.”

You sigh, “As I said, he could not attend, and I was sent in his place.”

The man continues yapping on, and you hear Wormperor pipe up in your mind.

I do believe that one muttonchop is shaved higher than the other.

And by god he was right, as you stare at the facial hair of the man in front of you. He’s fully ranting and raving about whatever the issue is, but you’re too busy being fascinated by the mutton chops to actually listen to what he wants to talk about.

“Are you even listening?” he snaps, spit flying over the table.

You blink slowly, and then lean in, “I think you need to shave more evenly. It makes you look like you fell over while in the middle of the process.”

The Wormperor laughs, and the man turns tomato red with embarrassment and anger.

It’s after that that Malcador promptly disallows you from being in any more meetings for the day. In your defense, you probably shouldn’t have been in there to begin with– goodness only knows you were never terribly good with nobles in the first place.

“Where to now?” you ask the open air– although the terrarium is slung by your side.

To the gardens– I hunger for fresh air.

The gardens are beautiful as always, with fragrant flowers of long dead species blooming in the soft light of the afternoon. Faintly, you wish that the worm beside you was actually strolling along the path with you. 

I am strolling with you.

“Don’t read my private thoughts. It’s considered rude, you know.”

…I doubt that. There are few who can manage reading minds in the first place.

He would know that, wouldn’t he?

“I bet you wrote the rulebook, if there is one.”

There isn’t.

“There should be, then. And make that rule one: don’t read private thoughts.”

Would all thoughts not be considered private?

“I’m going to leave you out here by yourself. As a little worm to get picked up by a bird or something.”

No you won’t.

“Shut up.”

But no, indeed you wouldn’t. Damn your soft heart. You decide to ignore him, and keep pushing through your walk, marveling at the small butterflies that have been unleashed in a torrent on the petaled population of the gardens. It was always a fun thing to do– although normally you had a walking encyclopedia of plant knowledge with you.

I thought you didn’t want me to speak.

“I still don’t.”

He gives you the mental impression of a shrug, and you roll your eyes.

By the time the end of the day comes around, he turns back into his normal form and asks if you still would love him as a worm.

You sigh, defeated, and he almost looks proud for a second.

“I still would love you as a worm.” is what you land on saying.

Which seems to be a turn from what he was expecting, given his facial expression. So you tack on: